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New York — self-taught New York artists used the pandemic to create a diverse diorama depicting the Brooklyn scene in the city, in addition to many other rural settings.
Aaron Winston Kinard has been working at Barnard College in Manhattan for decades. About four years ago, he developed his lifelong artistic talent into a passion for creating glamorous dioramas.
A diorama is a miniature model of a scene represented using 3D objects placed in an artistic background.
Kinard's house is like a mini-museum of his work.
When creating a piece, Kinard spends a few days painting items such as bricks. He uses a variety of forms, from 3D printing to airbrushes, to complete his work. When the
pandemic broke out, he no longer had to travel the city for his work and had more time to dig deeper into his art projects.
"We've been in a virtual or semi-blocked state for almost three years, during which time I had to make a decision," he said in an interview at his home in Brooklyn. Sharing with partners. "Did I sit on the couch and watch TV or drink beer until this was over while I was blocked? Or did I intend to be creative?"
He followed through and worked on a theme that came to everyone's mind during the shutdown.
Themes included cityscapes, poverty, homelessness, and Black Lives Matter protests.
Kinard from Washington, D.C., who has lived in New York since the late 1970s, has received formal art training except for a few classes at Bernard and the International Center of Photography, which is based in New York. did not.
He says he relies on YouTube video experiments and instructions.
"If you look at many miniatures and videos about this, there are people who are building trains, stations, and small towns on the railroad. It's always in the countryside, most of the time reflecting White America. "He said. ..
"It looks beautiful and talented, but it wasn't something I was involved in. When I tried to scan the internet, few black artists were doing this kind of work. I wanted to represent it because I didn't. "(Report by Dan Fastenberg in New York Additional report by Aleksandra Michalska in New York Edited by Diane Craft and Matthew Lewis)
